The Power Of Words In F. Scott Fitzgerald's Babylon Revisited

A writer’s job is to use words to immerse a reader into a world of adventure and thought. To be able to do this requires great skills and many years of writing experience. F. Scott Fitzgerald was such a person who dedicatedly wrote through poems and plays during his earlier years and fiction later on, to convey little bits of himself in his writing. In his short story, “Babylon Revisited,” he uses the power of words to transport readers through feelings of an experience he knows personally. The main character of his story, Charlie, reflects Fitzgerald himself and his struggle as a former alcoholic who changed for the sake of his family. Throughout the story, Fitzgerald uses his writing to connect the intensity of the emotions he must have felt …show more content…
Upon arriving to Paris, Charlie heads straight to a bar looking for old drinking buddies and even leaves an address for Duncan, which causes the turn of events in the climax. The author also expresses the main characters longing for his past in descriptions and dialogue. As Charlie is out on the streets of Paris, he “directed his taxi to the Avenue de l’Opera… but he wanted to see the blue hour spread over the magnificent façade, and imagine…” (Fitzgerald 366). He recalls old scenes he wishes to experience again which is also exemplified in a dialogue the main character has with Marion. He says to her, “‘But it was nice while it lasted,’…‘We were a sort of royalty, almost infallible, with a sort of magic around us’” (367). Marion’s words and thoughts following this shows that she still suspects his attachment with his past. On the contrary, Charlie strives every day for Honoria (or to have his honor back) by devoting and disciplining himself to only one drink a day. At the same time, the author hints Charlie’s disgust, illustrated through a couple depictions of his past memories: “All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale…” (368) and “His first feeling was one of awe that he had actually, in his mature years, stolen a tricycle and pedaled Lorraine… In …show more content…
He chose not only to convey his story through just words on a page but also visually as the reader sees the length as an order of what Charlie deems most important in his life. The author also takes care in describing a scene and making every word count in revealing the characters. Writing style can tell a reader a lot about a person. How a writer structures a sentence, tells us of their mood as they are writing a story or a personal situation they are going through during a certain point of their life. As for Fitzgerald, through many aspects of his story, he has integrated details that has shaped his stories plot line and his own life plot as his visit to Babylon lives on in the hearts of his